By: Maximo Legaspi
I had a dream around two or three years ago. I can’t remember the exact date I had it, but I do remember that it was a school day, as I had to wake up early.
In the world of the dream, through one manner or the other, the American government had made it illegal to be a person of color and was sending out authorities to round up minorities and send them to detainment camps. Though I can’t recall specifics for parts of the dream, I spent most of it doing my best to avoid capture.
Where my memory has not faded is with the scene of my capture. After I had been found, I remember being placed into a shipping container with around a dozen other people, all obviously minorities of various kinds.
The container was dark, and most of the people had resigned themselves to the ground. Several armed guards were present, and one informed us that we would be transported to one of the detainment camps. A quick look around let me know that everyone knew this wouldn’t be happening.
I vividly remember my dream-self looking around frantically, and after realizing that I was about to die, I attempted an escape. Stopped by a guard, my dream ended as the doors to the container were shut.
I woke up, almost shooting out of my bed. It must have been around 4:00 or 5:30 a.m. The dream had felt too real, real enough to the point I thought that I had actually died. Once I had my bearings, I calmed down enough to go back to sleep.
The government was far from perfect, yet I believed it unlikely that the country would ever return to such a point.
Several years later, the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, released Project 2025 in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election. Though President Donald Trump has previously denied any serious connection to the plans laid out in the document, the president has appointed several of its authors to key positions within his administration.
In outlining a plan for a then-potential presidential term for Trump, the authors of the document advocated for the use of military personnel in rounding up undocumented immigrants.
In more recent measures, an executive order was recently signed designating English as the official language of the country, allowing government entities to stop releasing documents and information in other languages.
Another order Trump signed directs that transgender service members be identified and separated from the military. Gender-affirming care has been rolled back in many Republican states, and an additional order was signed recognizing only two genders.
Over 300 asylum seekers, many from Asian countries, were flown in and continue to be held in a Panamanian hotel without their consent. Nearly a third of them were then transported to a remote detainment camp on the edge of the Darién Jungle.
Additionally, around 180 undocumented immigrants with no discernible criminal history were sent to be confined in the infamous Guantanamo Bay naval station in Cuba before being deported to Venezuela. The migrants reported that they were subject to long periods of isolation, invasive strip-searches and were denied calls to lawyers or family members.
Efforts are being made to eliminate federal diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) hiring practices, including laying off employees in departments that do such work.
A new executive order attempts to end birthright citizenship, a right enshrined in the Constitution for more than 150 years. This measure is being challenged by several federal judges.
There are many more orders and much more legislation that have been put into place that follow similar trends.
All of these orders point toward one specific goal by the Trump administration; to create an “other.”
Whether it be in eliminating the use of the dozens of languages spoken by the 326 million people in the U.S., or in ensuring that people experiencing gender dysphoria will not receive proper care and aid or in deporting immigrants to countries they have never been to, the definition of what an American is is being changed in front of our eyes.
One may say that these are efforts to increase border safety or ways to preserve “American values.” What, then, are these “American values?” Preventing a country’s own citizens from pursuing the life, liberty and happiness promised to each one of them based on their gender, language and place of origin?
We, and by we I mean you, me, and everyone you know and don’t, find ourselves in an increasingly concerning manner unable to properly resist these actions.
We cannot look to our elected officials; the Democrats seem to be politically and morally castrated.
We cannot go through legal means; many of us lack the resources to fight in the courts.
We cannot, and this is a historical precedent, enact our resistance through protests and assembly; many cannot risk losing out on their livelihoods to send a message.
Ultimately, this is the goal of the current administration, to render those it deems as “others” unable to resist their oppression.
In seeing how minorities of all communities are being impacted by the recent events, I can’t help to wonder as to what is next. Will my nightmare become a reality?
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